About change, and 'Change aversion'

July 17, 2012

That RedBubble’s new design (or ‘design’) is a major change will not be denied by anyone.

Some people like it, some don’t, some are angry because things they need to do simply take much longer – and not only through unfamiliarity, but because the User Interface has changed in a way that tasks are simply harder to accomplish. Some have commented it’s just that people don’t like change.

It’s not as simple as that.

Read these two articles – and ponder how they relate to RedBubble’s new design, the way it’s introduced, and people’s various reactions to it.

It all comes down to what will we accept in change. Each person has their own amount of tolerance for changes, some get discouraged and leave, others complain or grumble under their beathes. I grumbled a bit, and then got to work learning the new system. Yes, some things take more time, especially for host like me. I’m getting there but still brumbling LOL.Thank you so much Marjolein for the two articles, very informative.

Thanks for your favorite and your comment Ann. I’m actually stunned by how they’ve so obviously missed an opportunity to make group host tasks easier to accomplish – from what I read, that too has been moving in the opposite direction.

You are very right that people differ in their tolerance for change, but the point of the articles is how change is introduced and handled afterwards is what makes all the difference. And there are other ways to introduce change than the ‘big bang’ method (which Google also seems to like – while Yahoo! has always done very gradual changes and ‘A-B testing’ (where different groups of people get slightly different versions so effects of one change can be tested and easily rolled back). When you do all your changes in one big bang, it’s impossible to test which part is causing which effect, and hard to improve when there are negative effects…

The problem is, of course, that not everyone ‘accepts’ this. With the previous change, many gave up and moved elsewhere, or just shifted the amount of their attention. And this is happening again. With an already-high level of churn among group hosts, and the fact it has become even harder for them, instead of RB giving them better tools to do their work, I expect many more just will give up group hosting, too.